International travel during a pandemic is challenging. All flights have been cancelled through Johannesburg due to the new Covid-19 strain there, and Air France cancelled their Nairobi flights from Paris, leaving me the best next option of flying through Amsterdam, which has some of the most stringent Covid-19 testing requirements anywhere in the world.
But the doors have stayed open, and on Friday, March 19, I will have a PCR Covid-19 test at a hospital that can give me the results in just 3 hours, and then a rapid test on Sunday morning at the Phoenix airport, just three hours before my plane departs. All of this is necessary just in order to transit through Amsterdam on Monday.
The best part was watching 750 pounds of surgical instruments, medical supplies, and PPE (personal protective equipment) leave my garage on a pallet to be sent by air freight to Zambia. In these last few months I have learned more about the air freight business than I ever wanted to know. But I'm so grateful that this was an option, as what is inside the boxes on this pallet will be an enormous blessing to the hospital and the patients that we will care for in Zambia.
In terms of a quarantine period, I will only need to quarantine for a few days, which is fine with me, because the time change is 9 hours, and it takes more than just a few days to adjust to a new time zone.
I'm hoping to be able to blog more while I'm in Zambia this time. Thank you all for your prayers and for reading this blog post.
